Other related coverage

CHILDHOOD in a fundamentalist Mormon community means little
education, regular beatings, rigorous household duties, and for
girls, an arranged marriage in their teens culminating in a
lifetime of subservience, say two sisters who fled that
existence.

"My father had four wives yet he couldn't keep his hands off his
daughters," said Rena Mackert, one of 31 siblings.

"One of my sisters had five sons, all sodomised by their
father."

Referring to her own experience, Rena's sister, Kathleen
Mackert, said: "I was required to perform oral sex on my father
when I was seven, and it escalated from there.

"The abuse was rampant - physical, sexual, emotional. We
experienced all three. Some of it at the hands of the men, some of
it at the hands of the wives."

They spoke out as child protection workers continued to
interview 416 children removed from the ranch of the Fundamentalist
Church of Latter Day Saints near Eldorado, Texas, this week because
they were at risk of, or were already victims of neglect and sexual
abuse. The ranch is associated with the self-proclaimed prophet
Warren Jeffs, now serving 10 years' jail for his role in the rape
of a 14-year-old girl in an arranged marriage.

The Mackert sisters grew up alongside Jeffs in Colorado City,
near Arizona's border with Mormon-dominated Utah.

A former Utah journalist, Andrea Moore-Emmett, said there were
13 big groups practising polygamy, which has been abandoned by the
mainstream Mormon Church.

Moore-Emmett said she fled Utah after publishing a book,
God's Brothel, detailing the abuse of women and children in
fundamentalist communities.

She said polygamy was "normalised" in Utah where the sects were
viewed simply as people practising their religion.

"Women are vessels to be worn out in childbirth, and girls are
having children at age 14, 15, 16," she said. "We have a high
tolerance for religious freedom and anything goes in the
name of religion."

Kathleen Mackert, 50, who said she had undergone extensive
therapy since leaving the group after her husband's work moved the
couple away, said she was relatively lucky being forcibly married
to a stepbrother only 10 years her senior.

"Literally, one day I was called into my father's office and he
told me God had given the prophet a revelation that I was to marry
my brother," she said. "Everything was controlled. Those girls
there, they don't see a way out. When I was growing up the
community was not nearly as closed off and fanatical as they are
now, so it's my belief the abuse is even worse now. The thing about
that religion, it attracts a lot of people who are
dysfunctional."

Rena Mackert, 54, now lives in hiding in the US. She said her
mother's family had for generations practised polygamy.

"You are taught that you can all but kill a child for deliberate
disobedience. The men have their power taken away by [Warren]
Jeffs. The only thing they have control over is their wives and
children. It's power, it's control, and it's sex.

"This is about underage children being bartered as sex slaves,
taken across state lines to marry into other compounds. It's just
that they tried to cover it up under the label of freedom of
religion."

The Utah attorney-general's office has employed special
investigators into the sects and claims some responsibility for
last year's prosecution of Jeffs.

Paul Murphy, a spokesman for the attorney-general, said several
new investigations were under way, and Arizona was prosecuting
eight men for sex offences relating to underage marriage.

The families supported themselves through welfare claims, he
said. "I met a woman the other day who had 17 children, and another
with 14. Multiply that by several wives and you have a pretty big
family."

Moore-Emmett criticised Utah officials, saying the state did
little because polygamy was so normalised. "The politicians are
Mormon. Mormons have abandoned polygamy. However, it's in their
scripture, and they all expect to live it in the hereafter."

Meanwhile, welfare workers dealing with the Eldorado children
would need to avoid using make-up, jewellery and wearing their hair
loosely otherwise, Kathleen Mackert said, "they are wearing the
signs of the Devil, and they are not going to be trusted".